Handle with Care
by miserableatworst
Summary: Through a regrettable series of events involving a family death, Kenny and Eric wind up with a baby. However, they really can't even take care of themselves. May contain lemon and drug references, etc, etc... full warnings in chapters. Thanks to Sarah for being my muse and my brother for supplying me with caffeine and sugar. I wouldn't be possible without them. Review Please.


A hood can protect you from a lot of things: the cold, the people you don't want to talk to, and sometimes even something that you don't want to see. Other people didn't seem to be catching on, but that was the real reason that Kenny was always wrapped in his signature orange parka. Even a good twenty or so years after he'd first got the thing, he still didn't feel protected unless he was wearing the stupid thing. It was stuffy, and he had an awesome-although that word was used loosely-fiancé.

Maybe it was a subconscious thing; like, maybe since he'd never really had anyone that he could look up to or feel safe around he just grew accustomed to the parka being his protector. It was like a security blanket, and despite the many pleas from a lot of different people, he refused to rid himself of the ratty old thing because it made him feel safe.

But it could never keep him safe from bad news. The hood was like a one way mirror when it came to sounds; they were muffled on the way out, but Kenny could hear perfectly fine, even if he didn't want to. He could tighten the hood around his eyes, but that only blocked sight, not sound. And one thing he definitely didn't want to hear was the news that his brother's girlfriend was dead.

Suddenly he couldn't breathe, and he hoped that he didn't actually suffocate and die _again._ Even if he would come back to life the next day or week or whatever, it was a hassle. He had other things to attend to, like funerals and his own wedding.

Now, he normally wouldn't care about his brother, since they had both gone their separate ways, and it wasn't his job to take care of the oaf. But they did keep in touch, and although they didn't talk very often and Kevin's girlfriends were nearly all sluts and he couldn't keep up with them anyways because he just switched taste too often, Kenny had been friends with this girl. Furthermore, she had just given birth to a tiny blonde girl about three months ago, and anyone who's ever had anything to do with babies knows that two parents usually provides the best outcome. He had had very minimal contact with the small child, but from what he knew she would probably grow up to be a bubbly, feisty blonde, much like her uncle. However, he was also aware that having a dead parent could fuck a kid up pretty bad, and he didn't want that for his niece.

Hmph. Three months and it was still weird to say: _his niece. _Kenny McCormick was not meant to be an uncle, father, or really have anything to do with kids in general. He was just one of those people who wasn't mature enough to deal with kids. Sure, he'd matured quite a bit in the past few years, but he still wasn't daddy or uncle material; he probably wasn't even babysitter material. And yet here he was, discussing his almost sister in law and his niece.

For someone who had spent almost his entire life not really caring, he was under way too much stress right now. He knew that he would get stuck helping his dumb ass brother raise the kid, Emma. But he had his own life and why should he need to suffer just because Kevin didn't know how to use a condom?

Although now that he thought of it Emma was pretty cute, but he and Eric didn't have any spare money at all. And even if they did it wouldn't go towards fixing his brother's irresponsible mistakes. Oh no, Kenny was younger than Kevin; he shouldn't be the one to clean up when it hit the fan.

But the next thing that came out of the older man's mouth wasn't at all what he had been expecting to hear, and it was something that no one could ever even think of turning down. He felt even dizzier and even more breathless after hanging up the phone.

Funny how one phone call could change a life in less than ten minutes.


End file.
